Saturday, March 24, 2012

These words I'm writing you...

Today's a very special day, and I am so excited! There is something I wanted to do with you for SO long, but I never could find enough time for it, but today it's finally the day! 

Well, maybe for you it won't be anything special, but for me it is. It's my first DIY tutorial ever. Oh no no, those drawing videos don't count, because you simply see me drawing in sped up motion, and that doesn't show you how to do it. So, this is the first one, and it's in photos. I always found photo tutorials with descriptions better than video ones, because you simply can take your time while following, and you don't have to look for that spot where what was, or has been said, like in a video. 

I also spent a lot of time thinking about what I could show you, but since a few days I was pretty sure what it will be about. So... I'll show you how to make awesome vintage letter envelopes. Yup, simple as that. Some nice vintage ones. Well, I always loved discovering things by myself, and how they were made, and since I'm writing letters again (yippie yaay!), I found that  I need more pretty envelopes! And, I've been in all kind of paper stores, from the very elegant office to the shabby and pretty in pink ones. Well, yup, here and there were some which could be ACCEPTABLE, but for this occasions I need something special. Very special. So I decided to give it a chance and try it to make some myself.

So everyone, let's go ahead and jump into everything!


So, the main things that you will need are scissors, some glue (doesn't have to be the stick one, but I perfer it over all others for such simple things), a mechanical pencil and an eraser.

 
Next thing you will have to think about is what kind of paper you want to use for your little envelope! Here you have the complete freedom of your imagination, you can use WHATEVER you want. Here are some paper goodies I had to choose from.

 
Then you simply need to choose a regular envelope of size and shape you like. This one you see above I actually planned to use, but then it somehow got dirty, and I couldn't anymore. But without that little accident I wouldn't get this idea!

 
After you know which envelope you will use, you simply need to disassemble it like shown in the picture above.

 
So this is the paper I chose. It's a page from a very old book, or better it was, because I found it in my old drawing portfolio, along with some other similar ones. It's in French and about Rembrandt's art. Anyway...

 
... then you take your simple envelope and place it on top of your chosen paper...

 
... and draw the contours of it.

 
It should look something like this!

 
Afterwards you cut it out.

 
And that should look like this. 

 
And now comes the fun part! The folding! Firstly begin with the side parts...


 
...followed by the bottom part...

 
... and the upper one.

 
Now it looks like something!

 
Now you need to glue the bottom part of the envelope to the sides we folded at the beginning. I think the best way to do this is to apply the glue at the edges of the sides of the bottom part. So you don't glue the back of the envelope unintentionally.

 
You need to put some pressure on the spots where you've applied your glue. Hold like that for a few seconds, because we don't want our nice letters to fall apart on its way to its receiver!



 

And now it comes to your creativity... You can decorate your letter with whatever you want... Some stickers likeI did, some masking stickers perhaps or some deco tape. It's all up to you!



 
And the final result! Simple as that! 


 
Here are some other examples of how it can look like. I kept it pretty simple but you can do with it whatever pleases you!

I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did while making it.. And I hope it helps! Until next time!

Love, Aleksandra.

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